I see people discussing how great things are in Cuba under the genius of Fidel Castro. I see people predicting how things will go down hill in Cuba if the communist regime falls and the US attempts to tilt it toward a democracy.

In order to comapre the sucess or failure of Communisim VS Democracy and vice versa in a latin American country, Let's coampare Cuba with Puerto Rico, a democratic US territory and commonwealth. I believe they have voted against state hood and independance several times.


Let's start around the same time that the seeds of revolution in Cuba were taking root:

On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman. Subsequently, Truman allowed for a genuinely democratic referendum in Puerto Rico to determine whether Puerto Ricans desired to draft their own constitution. Puerto Rico adopted its own constitution in July 25, 1952 which adopted the name Estado Libre Asociado (Free Associated State), translated into english as "Associated Commonwealth", for the body politic and which denotes Puerto Rico's current relationship with the United States. During the 1950s Puerto Rico experienced a rapid industrialization, with such projects as Operation Bootstrap which aimed to industrialize Puerto Rico's economy from agriculture-based into manufacturing-based.

Present-day Puerto Rico has become a major tourist destination and a leading pharmaceutical and manufacturing center. Still, Puerto Rico continues to struggle to define its political status. Three locally-authorized plebiscites have been held in recent decades to decide whether Puerto Rico should pursue independence, enhanced commonwealth status, or statehood. Narrow victories by commonwealth supporters over statehood advocates have not yielded substantial changes in the relationship between Puerto Rico and the federal government. In the latest status referendum of 1998, "None of the above" won over statehood with 50.2% of the votes, and support for the pro-statehood party (Partido Nuevo Progresista or PNP) and the pro-commonwealth party (Partido Popular Democrático or PPD) is about equal. The only registered independence party on the island, the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño or PIP, usually receives 3-5% of the electoral votes, though there are several smaller independence groups like the Partido Nacionalista (Puerto Rican Nationalist Party), el Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano (National Hostosian Independence Movement), and the Macheteros - Ejercito Popular Boricua (or Boricua Popular Army).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico